Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!fornax!miron From: miron@fornax.UUCP (Miron Cuperman) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Missing mission Message-ID: <1151@fornax.UUCP> Date: 26 Aug 90 21:06:11 GMT References: <11446@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <1990Aug26.063940.29357@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> Organization: School of Computing Science, SFU, Burnaby, B.C. Canada Lines: 43 cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar) writes: >People have a right to breathe, but do they have a right to breathe >other people's air? They may have a right to move around freely, but >must they do it on someone else's streets? They should be allowed to >listen to the news on TV, but should they be allowed to do it by >intercepting the government's airwaves? >My point is that Cyberspace, the Net, or whatever you choose to call >it, may not be the same thing as property. Why shouldn't the >elctronic world be public, just as the real world is? Why shouldn't >the cost of keeping network links up be a part of the function of >government, just as the cost of maintainig roads is today? It seems contradictory to me that you want to fight government oppression and yet you want to enlarge the public sector. Why should everything be privately owned? Compare west Germany and east Germany. The government will either spend too little or too much on 'public' goods (for example - networks ). If it does get it right - it will be trough some studies which would also cost money. And since the government is inefficient too, everybody will pay for this more than if it were private. And by letting the government have control over the networks, you will let it censor the traffic. It will be very easy to justify it with 'the public interest'. (as censorship of things on the airwaves is done now). The world is not and should not be public. Some parts of it are common because it is inefficient to divide those parts explicitly. The government should not be given custody of these resources since it does not protect individual rights correctly. Only individuals can protect their own interests. See for example polution, victimless crimes etc. Common resources must be controlled through courts of justice, like any other resource. Communism is dead. I wish that people would start learning from history. > -- Cos (Ofer Inbar) -- cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu > -- WBRS (BRiS) -- WBRS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu WBRS@brandeis.bitnet > "Good literature is about Love and War." > "Junk Fiction is about Sex and Violence." -- By me: Miron Cuperman